40 per cent of Australian CIOs saw budgets decrease in 2013: Gartner

IT budgets were slightly down in 2013, with many Australian CIOs seeing their spending decrease throughout the year, according to Gartner.

The analyst firm surveyed 2339 CIOs worldwide (including 117 from Australia), representing more than $300 billion in CIO IT budgets. The survey was conducted during the fourth quarter of 2013.

Australian CIOs reported an average budget change of -0.1 per cent compared to last year, with 40 per cent seeing their budgets decrease in 2013. Twenty-six per cent of IT spend is outside of their organisations.

The Asia Pacific region saw an overall IT budget decrease of -1.1 per cent from 2012 to 2013. North America also saw a decrease of -1.0 over the period, along with Latin American countries (-1.6 per cent). Europe and Africa saw an increase of +0.4 per cent.

Government and utilities were the areas where most countries saw IT budget cuts.

The survey also found 20 per cent of Australian CIOs made significant investments in public cloud, with agility being the main reason for 48 per cent of CIOs who invested in cloud. Infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service are where most of that investment is going (65 per cent).

A quarter of CIOs globally have made significant investments in public cloud, with most expecting more than half of their organisations’ business to be in a public cloud by 2020.